Every time I call my bank to do something (such as pay off my loan yesterday) they try to get me a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). They see I have a mortgage, and I have debt, and then try and convince me to apply for a HELOC. Do they get commission on these applications? Because I have been turned down for a HELOC before. Reasons: too much debt, and self-employment income, which they won't count as "real" income for another few years.
By why push the HELOC? It would be a cut in interest rates for me to be able to consolidate loans, almost by half these days- from 8.75% to 4.75%. So it seems counterintuitive that the bank would want to push the HELOC. Do they imagine I won't pay off the other debts, thus being more in debt? Or, as I said, does CIBC simply pay a commission to its customer service reps for getting at least an application started? I can understand if they were pushing a high interest credit card instead!
The other interesting part of the conversation on the phone with the bank yesterday was when the guy asked me what I planned to do with my current line of credit (which is maxed). Pay it off of course, I said, just like I just paid off one of my current loans with you today. I found this question absurd. What I else would I do with debt? Keep digging a hole? Been there, done that, no thanks! As soon as that debt is paid that LOC will be closed. No more keeping such things open "just in case" I have proved myself inept at managing such tools, so I am cutting myself off.
Again, I'm not giving an "official" explanation (and besides, banks may have different reasons for doing the same thing) but I think this explanation is plausible.
re: commissions, I doubt it, but it's possible. At our bank, agents are expected to keep alert to options that may (genuinely) work in the best interests of both our members and the bank, and ask, but there's certainly no commission involved. There performance evaluations, however, would suffer if they never asked questions about other products.